In the morning, before he wakes up, I hole my son in my arms and smell his breath. Inhale him. He is getting older, longer, smellier, but he is my own flesh and blood that I made from my body, raised, sweated and bled and cried for every day of his life and many days before.
And then I think about what it would be like to have him taken from me; to have to watch his beautiful, perfect little body be broken in ways that cause pain, in ways that don't heal, in ways that can't be fixed.
I think about the absolute searing pain I would feel, if I couldn't press his sleeping forehead to my lips, or his clean hair to my nose, or lift his body into my lap, his hand into mine. how would I live if he was taken from me, broken, burned, beaten.
I never used to think these thoughts, until Gaza. Until I began to track the suffering of the Palestinian people as they watched their loved ones be beaten, crushed, burned, cut, violated, tortured, frightened, maimed, and massacred.
And now I can't stop thinking about it. I catch myself crying at the absolute unfairness that is the relative ease and safety of our life.
The almost overwhelming privilege that exists in my ability to promise my child that I will protect him, keep him from harm, keep him safe, fed, clothed and clean. What an absolute load of bull shit. A government could take that ability from me, break my promises to my child, in a minute with their weapons and their heartless, soulless violence. And render me powerless to do the one job that matters in this life, protect my child.
Everyday I think about what a friend of mine said when her teenage son committed suicide. She reflected on all the time she spent cutting grapes in half to keep him from choking as a baby.
We do that, as parents, as care givers. We strive to protect them from the tiniest risks, to shelter them and herd them into maturity, relative safety, hoping they arrive in adulthood intact and capable.
But what happens to all of those efforts when your child is ripped from you by an occupying army, and imprisoned for years without contact?
What happens when a bomb or a sniper's bullet pierces your child's skin, tearing through the flesh you carefully nourished and cleaned day in and day out.
What happens when your child's fears are no longer irrational fears of monsters under beds, but very real fears of death, destruction, and unthinkable loss.
What happens when your child is hungry and you are powerless to feed them, when they are thirsty and you are powerless to quench their thirst? What happens when your child needs to be comforted by love and hugs and kind, soft, nice things, but you are dead and your poor child is huddled alone in a tent, bandaged and hungry with all of the orphans of a genocide that global powers refuse to admit is taking place.
How is anyone walking around right now, functioning? How did we pay our taxes and plan out meals without remembering the mother who asked to cut of her own hand to feed her child, the 2 year old orphaned and amputated alone in a tent, the child crying for help, isolated in a car full of dead relatives, and the bombed out ambulances driven by aid workers murdered in their attempt to rescue her from what must of been a horrific final day of her incredibly young life.
There is so much pain, suffering, frustration and angry boiling in my broken heart, and you have the audacity to discuss the appropriate way to protest, the right time to speak out, the civility of sharing images of the destruction my government has spent billions funding?
Fuck all of the way off. I will help burn this system down until a new one is born.
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